The threat of toxic content on decentralised social media platforms
6 hours ago
- Mastodon is a decentralized microblogging platform where anyone can create their own instance or community.
- Instances can be isolated or federated, allowing posts to be visible across the network.
- There are about eight thousand Mastodon instances, each with its own moderation policies, leading to inconsistent content standards.
- Toxic content can spread freely across federated instances due to the lack of platform-wide moderation.
- Research indicates toxic content is becoming more prevalent on Mastodon, despite many users migrating to escape toxicity on other platforms.
- Decentralization offers advantages like no single entity controlling the network, but it also enables the spread of unwanted content.
- Finding a solution to toxic content on Mastodon is challenging because of its decentralized nature.